On a Stone, Linear X: The Only Known Résumé From the Capital City

My name is Reggie.
I build coffins.

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Scroll One, Linear X: An Astrologer’s Supplication

Mark my words: the weather will be peculiar, but that is not all. The sky will kick the ocean and the sun will bite you. All of you. Of us. Pluto will do it, and it will be like nothing we have seen. Do not be haughty: its conjunction with Neptune is only the beginning.

Brace yourselves. In our beloved city’s chart, Neptune forms a yod with Jupiter and Mars. This next balsamic moon, all will line up with the transits of the same signs and degrees. A rebirth, a reimagining of ourselves. The same yod, coming back, resting atop the first. Neptune-Jupiter-Mars, all striking the same notes.

I would, any other time, stress the coincidence without warning. I would tell you to take heed and live gently—forgive your brothers, renew your skin in a sea salt wash, kiss the earth, pray. I would predict a small storm—something to cool the soil and clear our heads.

But Pluto.

This time, Pluto is conjunct Neptune at the point of the yod. The three houses involved are the twelfth, fifth, and seventh, with the tip in the twelfth. Our unconscious minds will be at odds, passively, aggressively. It will be in how we look at one another as we pass in the street. It will be in how we pick our limes off the branches, with no gratitude. It will be in the stories we tell and the timber of our voices. Our children and ingenuity, our ties to mankind—flipped and broken. You can imagine the chaos; imagine more. Against our favor, there is a divine conspiracy we cannot avoid.

The Pythagorean triangle: two quincunxes, precisely 150 degrees, without generous orb; and Jupiter sextile Mars. It is all there, a dramatic display. The finger of God pointing resolutely at Pluto and Neptune, hugging each other tight as drum skin. And, too, they are in Scorpio, exalted.

I weep on my parchment.

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Scroll Two, Linear Y: The Dead Daughter, A Short Story

Hike me onto your knee. This is how you knew me: small and open. Remember? Not the child-coffin, the procession, the beating of your skull on the slab when it was over and you were alone.

The slab is sick of your brow’s blood. Enough. Lift your head and look: the family seal, saying we are all important. The family seal, saying only a piece of us is covered with dirt. The seal that will outlast our buried teeth. I know: an absence can weigh more than a presence. I know: the loss does not capture the losing. Not one of us is new. Nothing is new. Your tears are swallowed clouds, old as fire.

Katrina Gray lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Her stories have appeared in Necessary Fiction, JMWW, Women Writers: A Zine, etc. She blogs about her human experience at www.katrinagray.com.